


Front End

by NerdsbianHokie



Series: The Code [1]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Carnival AU, Gen, minor character deaths off screen, orphaned Danvers sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 08:18:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13700547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerdsbianHokie/pseuds/NerdsbianHokie
Summary: 1. The front of a car or other vehicle.2. The part of a radio or television receiver to which the aerial signal goes first.3. A part of a computer or program that allows access to other parts.4. The place on the midway of a carnival, closer to the gate, that has games and concessions





	Front End

**Author's Note:**

> The story of how Alex and Kara end up at J'onn's carnival

They were like the Baudelaires in the beginning of the series, Alex figured.

Smart.

Inventive.

Jewish.

On a beach on a cloudy day.

Alex bent down and picked up a shell as the water pulled back. She turned it over in her palm, then threw it at the water.

Except, there were only two of them, just her and Kara.

The beach they were at wasn’t usually cloudy.

And they already knew the news that was going to completely change their lives.

Alex threw another shell into the water.

She looked further down the beach.

Kara was sitting cross legged, just beyond the reach of the water. Her hand was trailing back and forth in the sand.

Alex sighed. Kara was an orphan twice over now.

Or, would she even consider herself orphaned again? She had only been living with them for two months.

Regardless, it couldn’t be easy for her. Losing her planet, then losing the people she was sent to live with on this new one.

Except Alex.

Her parents had wanted them to be sisters.

Kara is nine, they told her. She needs someone to look up to, someone to look after her, they had said. Just try, Alex, they had asked.

Alex had balked at the idea.

She didn’t want a random new sister. She didn’t like how Kara followed her around the house. She definitely didn’t appreciate having her math homework corrected by a nine year old.

And now her parents were...

And she wanted nothing more than to go back and accept Kara from the start, because then...because maybe…

Alex sniffed. She swallowed against the lump in her throat.

She was...her parents were...they...

She sat, the impact of her ass on wet sand sent shock waves up her back. She pulled her knees to her chest. She ducked her head, wrapped her arms around her knees.

Her parents were gone.

Gone.

Never coming back.

A wave pulled up the sand, soaking her shorts.

They were dead.

Alex was an orphan.

It was just her and Kara.

Silent sobs shook her body.

No more morning surfing with her dad.

No more nightly reading with her mom.

No more star gazing on the roof, or trips to the drive in theater.

No more birthdays or Passover Seders or or or…

Gentle arms slid around her back. Kara pressed her head to Alex’s.

“I am sorry,” Kara whispered.

Alex shook her head as tears dripped down her nose.

She pulled one arm from her knees and wrapped it around Kara’s shoulders.

She squeezed Kara as hard as she could hoping to ground herself, knowing Kara would barely be able to feel it.

Kara squeezed back, just on the wrong side of hard, but Alex let that ground her as well.

Her sobs tapered out, leaving her sitting with wet shorts and a stuffed up nose.

She crossed her legs and stared at the ocean.

Tide was going out, the water barely reaching them anymore. The clouds at the horizon were starting to clear, letting blue show through. Seagulls floated through the air just off-shore.

“Are we going to go live with Kal-El now?” Kara asked.

Alex took a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

“Where else would we go?”

“Well, there’s a system the government runs, for kids with...without parents. We could end up there, with foster parents.”

And, oh, That would be bad. That would be really bad.

Kara was an alien, a literal, from another planet, alien. If anyone found out, it would be really bad.

If they were separated, it would be really, really bad.

No matter what happened, they had to stay together.

“Alex? Kara?”

Alex looked over her shoulder at the women.

She was tanned and well dressed in skirt, jacket, and heels that Alex would love to see her try to walk on sand in. She seemed to be smart enough not to try, and was instead calling at the from the bottom step of the stairs leading to their house.

Alex didn’t remember her name, just the way her lips had moved when she had told them the news.

“I need you to come inside, girls,’ the woman called.

Alex sighed. She turned back around to watch the water for a few moments before nudging Kara.

“We better go.”

Kara nodded. She clung to Alex’s arm as they made their way back up the beach.

“There is someone here who would like to see you,” the woman said as they approached the stairs. “He says your parents wanted him to care for you should something happen.”

Alex furrowed her brow. Her parents had never told her about anyone. Her father was an only child, and her mother didn’t talk to her brother. Bubbie, the only grandparent she had ever met, had died three years back.

The woman led them up the yard. Alex watched her ankles wobble in the grass, then looked up at the house, at the man standing just outside the screened porch.

Alex squeezed Kara’s hand.

Well, at least, with dark brown skin, broad shoulders, and a well fitted suit, he didn’t look anything like Count Olaf.

That was a small comfort.

He looked familiar, but she couldn’t place him.

He smiled softly, a smile of sympathy that made the gruffness of his face melt away.

“Alex, Kara,” he said, nodding to each of them. “My name is Hank Henshaw. I worked with your parents on occasion.”

Alex nodded. That was where she had seen him. Brief glimpses when she visited her parents lab, a time or two in her parents offices at work, once in the kitchen when she had gotten out of bed for a glass of water.

“They asked me to take care of you if something happened to them,” he said.

The woman’s phone rang. She sighed as she pulled it from an interior pocket of her jacket.

“I have to take this,” she said. “I will be right back.”

Hank watched her go before turning back to them. 

“Alright, girls, the truth.”

Alex took a small step back.

“My name is J’onn, Kal-El introduced me to your parents a while back.”

“Kal-El?” Kara asked. She stepped forward, tugging on Alex’s hand.

J’onn nodded. He got down on one knee, making him shorter than Alex, but at eye level with Kara. “I’m like you Kara. I’m not from Earth.”

“You are an alien too?” Kara asked.

He nodded.

“Prove it,” Alex said.

He glanced up at her. His eyes flashed red. He raised his hand, which was changing, growing, turning green.

Alex swallowed. “Okay, so you are an alien.”

J’onn’s hand went back to a human one. He stood.

“Your parents knew if something happened to them, they had to make sure Kara went somewhere safe for people like us.”

“And that’s with you?” Alex asked.

J’onn nodded. “I’m a leader in a sort of alien community.”

“Alien community?”

He inclined his head. “Do you remember the carnival that stops by every other year or so? The one with the show in the back?”

Alex narrowed her eyes. Her eyelids still burned from the recent tears.

“You run that carnival?”

He nodded. “A majority of us are aliens. It’s a safe community, one that stays undetected by people who aren’t so welcoming to us.”

“You want to take us there?”

J’onn took a deep breath. “I would prefer it, yes. It was your parent’s wishes, and would be one of the safest places for Kara. But, I want to give you the choice, Alex. You would spend the next four years on the road, and you would have to help with some of the work, most of the children do.”

“My school, my friends.”

“There is no guarantee you would stay in Midvale if you were put in the foster system,” he said. “You will still get an education. All of our kids are homeschooled. Many go to college before deciding if they want to continue living with the carnival or make a living elsewhere.”

Alex stared up at him. She clenched her jaw.

“I won’t leave Kara,” she said.

“I do not want to leave Alex,” Kara said.

Alex looked at Kara.

Kara was staring up at J’onn. Her grip on Alex’s hand was barely there. Her control over her strength tenuous if she wasn’t paying attention, so she often just didn’t use any.

If they went to a foster home, and an accident happened? If she hurt someone, or if someone walked in on her floating in her sleep, or if she lost control of the heat vision Clark said she would get soon?

“Kara, are you alright with going to the carnival?”

Kara looked back at her. She watched her for a moment, then nodded. Alex nodded back at her before looking at J’onn.

“Okay,” Alex said. “We’ll go with you.”

J’onn gave them another soft smile.

* * *

Alex collapsed back onto her bed with a huff.

The mattress shifted. Vickie appeared above her.

Alex’s stomach turned that way it always did around Vickie.

Not in the way it kept doing as she packed her room.

“Are they really making you move so far away?” Vickie asked.

Alex groaned. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

Alex closed her eyes. “Cause they suck.”

Vickie laughed.

Alex was going to miss that sound.

Alex was going to miss her.

“I’ll get to visit every now and then,” she said.

“You better.”

Alex grinned. She opened her eyes to Vickie still leaning over and and grinning back.

But, Vickie was also sad. Her eyes were tight, and the grin wasn’t as big as it could be.

Alex lurched up, throwing her arms around Vickie.

“I’m gunna miss you,” she whispered.

“Me too,” Vickie whispered back, squeezing her.

Alex pressed her face into Vickie’s neck, not wanting to let go. She smelled like the perfume Alex had bought her for her birthday.

Alex pulled back quickly, practically jerking away.

“I have to finish,” she murmured.

“You could come live with me,” Vickie said.

Alex shook her head. “I can’t leave Kara.”

“Right.” Vickie let out a long sigh. “This sucks.”

“Yeah.”

Alex stood. She looked around her room.

The packing was almost done. Her clothes were all packed and sorted into  _ keep  _ and  _ store  _ and  _ donate.  _ Vickie had more than a few shirts she was going to keep. Her books were already loaded into J’onn’s pick-up, as were the boxes of miscellaneous things she had. Her telescope had been carefully dismantled and put into its carrying case.

All there was really left to do was take the posters down and gather up the pictures.

And…

She crossed the room, to the surfboard leaning in the corner.

The first one she had built with her dad. It was too small for her.

“Are you even going to be living by an ocean?” Vickie asked.

Alex ran her fingers up the waxed wood. “No.”

The board she used was going into storage with her surfing trophies and prizes from science fairs and all of her parent’s stuff.

She brushed a finger over a dent where she had gone too far up beach once and hit some rocks.

She had almost stopped after that, seven years old and terrified of rocks lurking to get her again. Her father had sat her down, and told her that she could stop, or she could learn from it and go back out knowing better how to avoid the rocks.

She had spent one day insisting she was done, then had woken her father up the next morning deciding that she really wasn’t.

The scar on her leg from it was still clearly visible.

“I’m taking it, though,” she said.

J’onn had told them that they wouldn’t have a lot of space for stuff. That was why she was going through everything.

But fuck them if they didn’t let her take this. She’d carry it herself if she had to.

* * *

Alex stared at the fronts of the stores they were driving past.

Small places, mostly mom and pop type stores, typical of a main street in a small town.

Not unsimilar to Midvale.

They passed a post office, and turned.

The main street gave way to a high school, then a collection of office buildings, then fields.

“We are set up a few miles this way,” J'onn said.

“Why not closer?” Alex asked, eyeing the empty fields.

“Safety. Many of us use the distance to truly be ourselves while in the living area. If we set up too close, it increases the chance of locals seeing.”

Alex nodded.

J'onn had shown them his real form before they had started the trip.

“Have you met any other Kryptonians?” Kara asked. She leaned forward, trying to get a better view out the windshield without floating off of the seat.

“Just you and Kal-El.”

Kara sighed. She sunk back into the seat.

“If your people could travel through space, there have to be people who weren't there, right?” Alex asked.

“Space travel was banned,” Kara said. “After someone crashed into one of our moons.”

Alex glanced at J'onn. He nodded.

“Oh.”

Alex looked back out the window, heat rising up her neck in embarrassment. She wiggled a leg, trying the stretch as much as she could while it was crammed under the dash with both of Kara's.

They passed a house, then a second, then Kara nudged her.

“Ow! Kara!”

Kara looked sheepishly at her.

“Sorry, but look!”

Alex turned to look forward.

A ferris wheel was rising over a crop of trees. It's lights twinkled like stars against the darkening sky.

“Is that it?” Alex asked.

“That's it,” J'onn answered. “Welcome to your new home, girls.”

* * *

The ferris wheel loomed over her.

The sky was dark. The air was crisp. The carnival was silent.

The ferris wheel loomed.

Big Eli, some of the workers had called it as they had assembled it.

In just a matter of hours after they had gotten to the new location.

If she hadn’t known they were aliens, she wouldn’t have believed it possible.

Alex glanced around.

The entire carnival had been raised between sundown and about thirty minutes ago. Everyone had gone to the camp.

The back yard, they had called it.

Alex was alone.

Alone, and kind of cold, and so very alone.

She wasn’t in Midvale anymore.

She wasn’t with her parents anymore.

She was living with a carnival, currently set up somewhere in Oregon.

Just her, her new sister, and a bunch of strangers.

She stepped up to the ferris wheel. She trailed her fingers up the side of the cabin. She looked up.

It loomed.

She wasn’t sure she had ever realized how big it was when the carnival had stopped in Midvale a few times.

She glanced around, then pulled herself up on top of the cabin. She glanced around once more, pulled her gloves off, then started to climb.

Her muscles burned. Her fingers quickly went numb.

She slipped once, her hand sliding down a slick portion of wire.

But, before she knew it, she was hoisting herself up over the top. She turned to sit, legs dangling below her.

She could see for miles.

The carnival spread below her.

The town up the road.

The town past that.

The mountains cutting into the horizon.

She looked over her shoulder.

It was the same.

Towns. Mountains.

No ocean. Alex didn't think she had ever been so far from the ocean.

She took a deep breath. She flexed her fingers around the bar she was sitting on.

She looked down at the carnival grounds.

It was all new, and she was really the stranger there.

The workers spoke in a language that sounded part English, part countless other things. A pidgin language she might learn, might have to learn.

They all came from different cultures, different worlds, different planets.

She had only met two other humans so far, an elderly couple who were in charge of the food stands.

She had been hyper aware of her humanity since J’onn had first brought her and Kara in. She couldn’t help but wonder if that was how Kara had felt during her short time surrounded by only humans.

Movement pulled her attention down.

She could just make out J'onn leaning against a post not far from the base of the ferris wheel.

A calm settled over her.

She hadn't been concerned with falling, hadn’t cared, really, but at least, if she did, she knew he would be able to catch her.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all like this. Hopefully, I'll get the story of Lucy joining done next.


End file.
